Formative pruning

Formative Pruning is an Arboricultural practice that involves selective removal of parts of a tree, such as roots, buds, limbs and branches following best arboricultural practice.
Reasons to Formative Prune trees, may include removing deadwood and major deadwood, shaping to control or direct growth, maintaining or improving health, reducing risk of branch or limb failure, preparing nursery specimens for transplanting, and both harvesting and increasing the yield or quality of fruits and blooms.
The practice of Formative Pruning entails selected removal of dead, diseased, damaged, non-productive, structurally unsound, or otherwise unwanted tissue from landscape and crop trees. Specialised pruning techniques may be applied to particular plants, such as roses, grapevines and fruit trees.
Our Tree Focus Ltd Arborist team use various specialised arborist tools designed for Formative Pruning, such as specific Arborist secateurs, handsaws, hand pruners, loppers, or chainsaws.
In general, the smaller the branch that is removed, the easier it is for a woody tree or plant to compartmentalise or heal the wound limiting the potential for pathogen intrusion and decay to enter the tree and work it's way through the tree. It is thereby preferable to make any necessary structural formative pruning cuts to young trees, whenever possible, rather than removing large, poorly located branches from large, mature trees.
Please ask our friendly, helpful Albany based Arborists at Tree Focus Ltd for more information about the benefits of Formative Pruning.